Do you think PD should bring some "Western" influnce into the development process?

[Delrond]

I think it's a fine line to tread.

In a long running series like GT, I'm all for seeing progressive improvements to things like the driving physics etc, and even trying new things with the way you progress through the game (although that hasn't really worked out that well this time, has it......). And if 'western' developers are better at this aspect then so be it.

What I wouldn't like to lose, though, is the distinct personalities that the differences between, say, Japanese and American cultures impose on different games. The smooth jazz and relatively static menus make up a big part of GT's personality, as does the noisy, in your face front end set the scene in something like Grid or Dirt.

It's the same for other genres too, and I'd worry that if the mixing of influences went far enough, we'd end up with a muddy compromise that most people can like, but that no one can love.

 

[Tenacious D]

I pretty much disagree, Robin.

Being a car appreciation society is why Gran Turismo has always been so cool. While others went for race cars or supercars, we got to experience rides which we'd never even heard of until a GT game came out. Sometimes, I think they go too far, such as with the Daihatsu Midget utility cart. But then, who else would think of including the Autozam or Del Sol? GT may have actually been a key factor in reinvigorating the sports car market, and induced a few cars to get imported over here. Do I want to give this up? Heck no!

Yes, they intended to implement things that have yet to show up. The online playground Kaz is so proud of couldn't happen with the current PSN. We have to wait for that. But remember, GT4 couldn't happen without the dual layer DVD either, and we had to wait four years for it. We'll just have to be a little patient for PD to grow GT5 over the coming months, but it's already a much better game six weeks after release.

You already forgot that Kaz did hire more people in 2008. Polyphony was around 100 employees when they finished GT4, and they hired another 30 some odd in 2008 when it was clear that with the interruptions, GT5 wasn't going to be done for some time. Today, we don't know how many employees they have. But here's another Econ 101 class for everyone, since this needs to be repeated every so often.

Outside of the pharmaceutical, space or military industries, the greatest cost is always the employee. There was a thread made a few years ago in which we speculated the final cost of GT5, and I think the high mark was $50 million. Well, it may be $80 mill. A good hunk of that is licensing, testing, buying high end computers and servers, and field trips to acquire data. But the biggest chunk of money is likely payroll. SONY has to write these checks, and I'm sure when the bill was approaching $60 Big Ones, they were getting antsy. I bet squeezing those last $20 million required a lot of begging from Kaz, and who in their right mind would spend $80 million dollars on a freaking racing game?? And wow, it's not over yet! But, GT5 has already sold an insane number of games, so SONY hopefully is ready to fund more modeling talent.

As for a GT game every year, all I can say is Madden. Yukk.

I know the Standards don't sit well with some, but oh well, race them or don't. Many of us love the weird little critters. I do. Most of my cars are Standards, and I dive into the Used Lot every six racing days.

If GT5 had as many offline A-Spec events as GT4, complaining would be much less than it is now, and there would be just a grouch thread or two asking for Kaz's head. GT5 does need to grow, but it is. Let's not act like it isn't.

As Delrond says above, GT games have a unique flavor because Kazunori Yamauchi is an artist at heart, and wants a work of art, not just a game. Gran Turismo has a mood, an atmosphere, a living spirit that no other game does. Kaz knows how to make great games. He just needs to return to his original course set by the previous four to find his footing again. And GT5 can be massaged in this direction. Online can grow a lot. Let's see what they have in mind for us in 2011.

 

[THEALB10N]

The game honestly wouldn't be the same if it wasn't Japanese. Its the small, quirky things I enjoy. The car wash, the funny music, the horns. Its more than just a game, its an expression of the GT community. Moving away from that to create a "better game" would be nice, but it wouldn't be GT, would it?

 

[StevenDunn99]

The game honestly wouldn't be the same if it wasn't Japanese. Its the small, quirky things I enjoy. The car wash, the funny music, the horns. Its more than just a game, its an expression of the GT community. Moving away from that to create a "better game" would be nice, but it wouldn't be GT, would it?

Creating a better game does not mean it has to lose its soul. It can do both, like GT4 did.

 

[milos_k]

No. This generation of gaming is totally ruined for me by the dominance of western developers and their identikit kill this, kill that, kill everything else games.

The problem is that Japanese developers are lacking confidence in their own games and trying to mimic western games.

It makes me unhappy to look at the 95%+ ratio of Japanese games to under 5% of everyone else's games in my two previous generation consoles.

... and I say AMEN! , totaly agree ...

 

[RWB1213]

If the GT franchise continues to go down this "Car Appreciation" path, which emphasizes photos, elaborate descriptions, car counts padded by countless iterations of the same basic chassis, well then I think a good chunk of the community is going to move on. For me the game has always been about the driving, and more specifically RACING. I don't find lasting enjoyment from turning off the HUD and driving a convertible around the RING at sunset. Sure it's cool, but it get's old fast. Take away the ability to race online, and GT5 provides a short, undramatic, formulaic and souless racing experience.

My hopes are that the franchise changes it's lean and becomes The Real Racing Simulator.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

I pretty much disagree, Robin.

Being a car appreciation society is why Gran Turismo has always been so cool. While others went for race cars or supercars, we got to experience rides which we'd never even heard of until a GT game came out. Sometimes, I think they go too far, such as with the Daihatsu Midget utility cart. But then, who else would think of including the Autozam or Del Sol? GT may have actually been a key factor in reinvigorating the sports car market, and induced a few cars to get imported over here. Do I want to give this up? Heck no!

Yes, they intended to implement things that have yet to show up. The online playground Kaz is so proud of couldn't happen with the current PSN. We have to wait for that. But remember, GT4 couldn't happen without the dual layer DVD either, and we had to wait four years for it. We'll just have to be a little patient for PD to grow GT5 over the coming months, but it's already a much better game six weeks after release.

You already forgot that Kaz did hire more people in 2008. Polyphony was around 100 employees when they finished GT4, and they hired another 30 some odd in 2008 when it was clear that with the interruptions, GT5 wasn't going to be done for some time. Today, we don't know how many employees they have. But here's another Econ 101 class for everyone, since this needs to be repeated every so often.

Outside of the pharmaceutical, space or military industries, the greatest cost is always the employee. There was a thread made a few years ago in which we speculated the final cost of GT5, and I think the high mark was $50 million. Well, it may be $80 mill. A good hunk of that is licensing, testing, buying high end computers and servers, and field trips to acquire data. But the biggest chunk of money is likely payroll. SONY has to write these checks, and I'm sure when the bill was approaching $60 Big Ones, they were getting antsy. I bet squeezing those last $20 million required a lot of begging from Kaz, and who in their right mind would spend $80 million dollars on a freaking racing game?? And wow, it's not over yet! But, GT5 has already sold an insane number of games, so SONY hopefully is ready to fund more modeling talent.

As for a GT game every year, all I can say is Madden. Yukk.

I know the Standards don't sit well with some, but oh well, race them or don't. Many of us love the weird little critters. I do. Most of my cars are Standards, and I dive into the Used Lot every six racing days.

If GT5 had as many offline A-Spec events as GT4, complaining would be much less than it is now, and there would be just a grouch thread or two asking for Kaz's head. GT5 does need to grow, but it is. Let's not act like it isn't.

As Delrond says above, GT games have a unique flavor because Kazunori Yamauchi is an artist at heart, and wants a work of art, not just a game. Gran Turismo has a mood, an atmosphere, a living spirit that no other game does. Kaz knows how to make great games. He just needs to return to his original course set by the previous four to find his footing again. And GT5 can be massaged in this direction. Online can grow a lot. Let's see what they have in mind for us in 2011.

👍 Well said.

 

[R34EVO9]

You'd be surprised what some think of me.

Both games are so deep it's hard to think of all the contrasts, strengths and weaknesses. And I neglected to mention that Forza allows user loaded music through the Media Center. We're stuck with both of them now, until GT5 gets patched into better shape, and Forza 4 ships.

****... You seem well informed and your the only one ive seen making reasonable post about what would make sense to add to the game and you posted the best comparisons between each games so far.

I myself have played just about every type of racing game you can think of. Remember Porsche unleashed that game was bad ass. I wish gt5 had some features like that. I realllllyyy want a dyno so bad though. that's all i want a dyno and more parts.

 

[vaneyk]

I think that GT5 is an acceptable racing game. Like others there are pros as well cons. I feel that it weighs too heavily in for Japan. Just the number of Skylines/Nissan's is proof enough. Hundreds of useless asian cars are even premium. Why? I do not want a premium Daihatsu.

They all but neglect a lot of good cars to make 30 extra skylines.

 

[Robin]

Being a car appreciation society is why Gran Turismo has always been so cool. While others went for race cars or supercars, we got to experience rides which we'd never even heard of until a GT game came out. Sometimes, I think they go too far, such as with the Daihatsu Midget utility cart. But then, who else would think of including the Autozam or Del Sol? GT may have actually been a key factor in reinvigorating the sports car market, and induced a few cars to get imported over here. Do I want to give this up? Heck no!

I do get what your saying and as I stated there is a obviously market for the quirkiness of GT. I just wish that these 'off the beat' features wouldn't come at a cost of basic functionality. This wasn't so much an issue with previous titles where for the most part everything looked and performed the same and still had that PD 'touch' but with GT5 is a real mish mash of ideas not all fully realized.

As for the unique cars I would argue other titles also have just as many very unique cars which may not be known to other markets, its just they are not Japanese models.

Yes, they intended to implement things that have yet to show up. The online playground Kaz is so proud of couldn't happen with the current PSN. We have to wait for that. But remember, GT4 couldn't happen without the dual layer DVD either, and we had to wait four years for it. We'll just have to be a little patient for PD to grow GT5 over the coming months, but it's already a much better game six weeks after release.

Although rolling updates are the biggest benefit of this generation it still doesn't mean its OK for developers to release half finished or buggy games (not speaking specifically about GT here) and patch later. Its a trend more and more dev's seem to be doing and it promotes laziness. Also we really shouldn't have to wait another 2-3 years in updates to get GT5 up to scratch. As for GT4 the dropped online, 1080i and drag racing right before launch plus the whole game was downgraded every so slightly graphically from prologue.

You already forgot that Kaz did hire more people in 2008. Polyphony was around 100 employees when they finished GT4, and they hired another 30 some odd in 2008 when it was clear that with the interruptions, GT5 wasn't going to be done for some time. Today, we don't know how many employees they have. But here's another Econ 101 class for everyone, since this needs to be repeated every so often.

Outside of the pharmaceutical, space or military industries, the greatest cost is always the employee. There was a thread made a few years ago in which we speculated the final cost of GT5, and I think the high mark was $50 million. Well, it may be $80 mill. A good hunk of that is licensing, testing, buying high end computers and servers, and field trips to acquire data. But the biggest chunk of money is likely payroll. SONY has to write these checks, and I'm sure when the bill was approaching $60 Big Ones, they were getting antsy. I bet squeezing those last $20 million required a lot of begging from Kaz, and who in their right mind would spend $80 million dollars on a freaking racing game?? And wow, it's not over yet! But, GT5 has already sold an insane number of games, so SONY hopefully is ready to fund more modeling talent.

When I meant hire more people I meant hundreds more! 30 more for a game which is at least 100% bigger is a slight underestimation of the task at hand. Seeing PD workers having to sleep in the office in the months up to release and missing at least one deadline (other than the FW delay) says it all!

The main reason why the dev costs where so high is mostly down to the high pay of Japanese workers and the standard of living in that country. If they had outsourced rendering work to other cheaper countries (like Turn 10 did) the costs would be considerably less. Its all to do with pride and GT being Sony's baby, they will give it all the time and money in the world and thats where the problem lies. The franchise is way too pampered and its getting complacent.

Robin.

 

[niky]

I think that GT5 is an acceptable racing game. Like others there are pros as well cons. I feel that it weighs too heavily in for Japan. Just the number of Skylines/Nissan's is proof enough. Hundreds of useless asian cars are even premium. Why? I do not want a premium Daihatsu.

They all but neglect a lot of good cars to make 30 extra skylines.

Nope. Those extra Skylines are all ports from previous Turismos, which means they didn't actually sacrifice modelling any new cars for them.

There are only five premium Skylines in GT5. And of those... only three Skyline GT-Rs. (The R35 isn't a Skyline... the G35/37 is).

 

[Lawndart]

Well this thread has definitely left the "western influence" theme and really turned into a very intelligent and objective discussion with very clear contrasts being drawn by well spoken folks.

This is my favorite thread at GTP...

I think another area that GT has accomplished and a bit of a disagreement from whats stated elsewhere about GT being or not being a racing game is, the GT series has done a better job than anyone at bridging the realistic cars we all drive and the very niche pure racing machines together linearly... GT was never about careers... a direction more newer racing games are exploring, but has been more about buying an everyday car and continuing to improve it up to a full racing machine. Capturing that feeling most of us had back in school about all the stuff we planned to do with our first car... and actually doing it in a game.

Enter racing... Just like so many armatures in the real world get into racing. This formula was fresh and new back in the early GT games... After a decade of other products and evolving standards much like what started this thread in the first place, we all want to see GT evolve... It still has the most convincing feeling of driving and we want all that great driving experience to mean more and be even more progressive...

This is where the questions of new management and direction come up... Very honest and fair question at this stage.

 

[Destinkeys]

Most of us who messed around building cars in our youth would have given up if told 'You can only race at 30% of the events you did last year'. First thing we would have asked is 'Why?'. And when the answer was 'We can't be bothered to stage them', well, you pretty much KNOW what we would have said to that!

Despite all the EXTRA stuff PD have always shoe'd into a RACING game, they never lost track, before now, that it WAS a racing game. You build a car for a REASON... not just because you LIKE building cars. Take away the racing, you take away the REASON for car building.

Who would build a light saber if you hardly ever got to USE IT?!

PD lost the forest for the trees, something that happens worldwide, not just in the East...

 

[DanDiplo]

Although rolling updates are the biggest benefit of this generation it still doesn't mean its OK for developers to release half finished or buggy games (not speaking specifically about GT here) and patch later. Its a trend more and more dev's seem to be doing and it promotes laziness.

Don't blame developers for this, blame their publishers (who are in turn answerable to their investors and shareholders). In the case of GT5 I can guarantee that it was Sony, not Polyphony Digital, that forced the game out this year in time for the Xmas market. I'm sure PD meant to include a lot of the features in the patches, but they literally ran out of time. Believe me, development houses are anything but hot-beds of laziness - coming up to a release people will be working extremely long hours, often every day.

 

[Lawndart]

Don't blame developers for this, blame their publishers (who are in turn answerable to their investors and shareholders). In the case of GT5 I can guarantee that it was Sony, not Polyphony Digital, that forced the game out this year in time for the Xmas market. I'm sure PD meant to include a lot of the features in the patches, but they literally ran out of time. Believe me, development houses are anything but hot-beds of laziness - coming up to a release people will be working extremely long hours, often every day.

you make a good point... if it wasn't PD we're talking about, that also happens to be run by the Sony VP earmarked to be the new president... Shareholders probably put a lot of pressure on but 6+ years is just too much time when those same guys are seeing the same sales from games that take 2... even if not racing games. Not to mention 6 years is longer than most console life cycles... almost like Kaz wanted to skip the PS3...

So a very valid blanket assumption many face but not what I would consider a factor here...

 

[BTBAM]

By now i think they should pretty much sack the whole team and just put someone with a hint of common sense in there.
The unemployed team can spend their resulting free time exploring the wonderful world of Tsukuba 9h and other wonderful quirks of the game

 

[Robin]

Don't blame developers for this, blame their publishers (who are in turn answerable to their investors and shareholders). In the case of GT5 I can guarantee that it was Sony, not Polyphony Digital, that forced the game out this year in time for the Xmas market. I'm sure PD meant to include a lot of the features in the patches, but they literally ran out of time. Believe me, development houses are anything but hot-beds of laziness - coming up to a release people will be working extremely long hours, often every day.

Its not like PD didn't have all the time in the world in the previous years to put what they wanted to into the game properly. They get an extremely generous development cycle as it is which is unheard of in normal game releases. If Sony hadn't told them enough is enough they could have gone on to take another 2 years! PD shouldn't have had such lofty ideas in the first place. Aspiring to deliver something and actually delivering it are obviously something PD are still learning 9 titles in!

Robin.

 

[vaneyk]

If the GT franchise continues to go down this "Car Appreciation" path, which emphasizes photos, elaborate descriptions, car counts padded by countless iterations of the same basic chassis, well then I think a good chunk of the community is going to move on. For me the game has always been about the driving, and more specifically RACING. I don't find lasting enjoyment from turning off the HUD and driving a convertible around the RING at sunset. Sure it's cool, but it get's old fast. Take away the ability to race online, and GT5 provides a short, undramatic, formulaic and souless racing experience.

My hopes are that the franchise changes it's lean and becomes The Real Racing Simulator.

I couldnt agree with you more. Its gone from "The Real Racing Simulator" to the Import Tuner Magazine. 60 different Skylines, oh the variety.

 

[Le Mans 88]

Forza 4 will rip and will have Spa francorchamps, Bathurst and TopGear testtrack.

What GT5 has proven is you'll need GT5, Forza 4, Shift 2 and Dirt 3 to get everything you want in a driving game.

 

[AlexGTV]

My hopes are that the franchise changes it's lean and becomes The Real Racing Simulator.

So you mean better AI, more real tracks and events?

 

[Robin]

What GT5 has proven is you'll need GT5, Forza 4, Shift 2 and Dirt 3 to get everything you want in a driving game.

I would say having the graphics of GT's premium cars + graphics of Forza's environments, community, customisation and online features + Grid / Dirt's Damage model = Epic console racing title.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

I don't think the problem is that Gran Turismo isn't "Western enough". I think that the Western audience has changed, while the Japanese developers have remained true to their core values. Take a look at what the big games are in the West this past year;

Red Dead Redemption
Call of Duty Black Ops
Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Halo Reach.

The rest are Wii sports/fitness games. I'm pulling these from various sources, so please bear with me, but all of these are "jump in/jump out" KILL, KILL, KILL! style games. They don't require any real involvement. Gran Turimso is a very deep, and VERY involving game. It requires that you put some time an effort into it. Do we as a society in the United States have that kind of attention span anymore? Apparently we don't, otherwise developers wouldn't be selling things like paid unlocks, which many have asked for even in Gran Turismo.

Could they do a few things better? Obviously they could. I just don't want this to become the kind of game that is just a carbon copy of something, or that panders to the lowest common denominator. That's something I felt that Need For Speed Shift tried, with all of it's slamming, banging, and "in your face" presentation. It came off as annoying, and not something you wanted to spend a lot of time with.

 

[Robin]

I don't think the problem is that Gran Turismo isn't "Western enough". I think that the Western audience has changed, while the Japanese developers have remained true to their core values. Take a look at what the big games are in the West this past year;

Red Dead Redemption
Call of Duty Black Ops
Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Halo Reach.

The rest are Wii sports/fitness games. I'm pulling these from various sources, so please bear with me, but all of these are "jump in/jump out" KILL, KILL, KILL! style games. They don't require any real involvement. Gran Turimso is a very deep, and VERY involving game. It requires that you put some time an effort into it. Do we as a society in the United States have that kind of attention span anymore? Apparently we don't, otherwise developers wouldn't be selling things like paid unlocks, which many have asked for even in Gran Turismo.

Could they do a few things better? Obviously they could. I just don't want this to become the kind of game that is just a carbon copy of something, or that panders to the lowest common denominator. That's something I felt that Need For Speed Shift tried, with all of it's slamming, banging, and "in your face" presentation. It came off as annoying, and not something you wanted to spend a lot of time with.

I agree that Japanese dev's have stuck to their true core values and thats fine if you want to play ball in your own back yard but if they want to be successful abroad they have to step up to whats currently popular and accept the changes in the marketplace. This has been an issue for quite a while with Japanese games anyway but the differences between the two markets are getting even larger with the rise of western devs.

Just look at the ressurange of mini-games in the past few years. Mobile gaming has changed the whole landscape of the industry and you could say the majority of people want a casual and simple gaming experience. Western dev's have been quick to pick this up and many games now feature short campaigns with the emphasis quick thrills and on online etc whereas Japan still seems to be online-a-phobic with single player being the focus.

I guess your right when you say the US (and I would say Europe also) is loosing its attention span with gaming, the latest games are only popular for a couple of months then they are bargain bin. In the past (PS1 PS2 era) most games you could play for at least a year.

You can't base and entire industry on just one countries appeal, Japan is a small place and they have to start making changes to deliver quick and fun games with universal appeal rather than epically long titles with epically long development cycles

Robin.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

I agree that the Japanese have to expand, but the thing is they probably don't know how. They also probably don't want to. From what I know of Japanese society, even though they love certain aspects of Western culture (rock n' roll, blue jeans, baseball, etc), many things are lost on them. I'm sure when they look at a game like Grand Theft Auto 4 they probably say "why would anyone think that this is fun?". I know this is a bit off topic, but a man named Paul Ingrassia wrote a book called Crash Course, which details the last twenty five years of the US auto industry. When Jon Stewart interviewed him on The Daily Show, he said that the Japanese never really go on board with the SUV craze. The thinking was, as he put it, "why would you buy an off road vehicle if you're not going to drive it off road?". That sort of illustrates, in both cases, the kind of practical nature of the Japanese in industry. I imagine that permeates the video game industry as well.

It's been long reported that the Japanese don't care for "Western style" games, mainly first person shooters. I don't know if it's our love affair in the United States that we have with guns, but these games are massively more popular here than anywhere else. But there's something culturally that they just don't get. Furthermore, it just doesn't interest them. A guy I know visited Japan a few years ago. He said at the time the biggest game there was Tokyo Bus Driver, which emphasizes hard work, discipline, being courteous to customers. And the biggest game in the U.S. was Grand Theft Auto. You couldn't be at two more opposite ends of the spectrum.

This article from Wired.com is actually pretty interesting;

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/09/western-games-japan/

 

[BrutherSuperior]

I don't think the problem is that Gran Turismo isn't "Western enough". I think that the Western audience has changed, while the Japanese developers have remained true to their core values. Take a look at what the big games are in the West this past year;

Red Dead Redemption
Call of Duty Black Ops
Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Halo Reach.

The rest are Wii sports/fitness games. I'm pulling these from various sources, so please bear with me, but all of these are "jump in/jump out" KILL, KILL, KILL! style games. They don't require any real involvement. Gran Turimso is a very deep, and VERY involving game. It requires that you put some time an effort into it. Do we as a society in the United States have that kind of attention span anymore? Apparently we don't, otherwise developers wouldn't be selling things like paid unlocks, which many have asked for even in Gran Turismo.

Could they do a few things better? Obviously they could. I just don't want this to become the kind of game that is just a carbon copy of something, or that panders to the lowest common denominator. That's something I felt that Need For Speed Shift tried, with all of it's slamming, banging, and "in your face" presentation. It came off as annoying, and not something you wanted to spend a lot of time with.

The on-line aspect of the games you listed is a HUGE selling point.

Sure, you can jump-in and jump-out, however, you can do this with all your buddies.

Little Big Planet is hugely popular, same with Minecraft, and those are very involved games which focus on user generated content instead of stabbing people in the face.

Gran Turismo is somewhere in the middle. Not nearly enough customization to make it unique (like LBP) nor is the on-line aspect fully encompassing (like Halo). They played it safe.

Set a new bar with user generated content (think Forza parts + paint and a true track editor) and add in an rich, yet easy to navigate, on-line system and you'd 'westernize' PD's baby.

Selling that to Japanese board members will probably be harder than you'd imagine though. They're very stubborn.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

The on-line aspect of the games you listed is a HUGE selling point.

Sure, you can jump-in and jump-out, however, you can do this with all your buddies.

Little Big Planet is hugely popular, same with Minecraft, and those are very involved games which focus on user generated content instead of stabbing people in the face.

Gran Turismo is somewhere in the middle. Not nearly enough customization to make it unique (like LBP) nor is the on-line aspect fully encompassing (like Halo). They played it safe.

Set a new bar with user generated content (think Forza parts + paint and a true track editor) and add in an rich, yet easy to navigate, on-line system and you'd 'westernize' PD's baby.

Selling that to Japanese board members will probably be harder than you'd imagine though. They're very stubborn.

User generated content is probably not going to happen on the PS3. That would entail putting some development tools on the net, or allowing some sort of general purpose program to make those changes. Sony probably has no desire to release those into the wild.

 

[vatanen ari]

Hi all,

I agree to a certain extent, however I don't find that gt5 demands much involvement at all, especialy in comparison with forza3. I'm level 30 Aspec and level 32bspec at the moment in gt5 and apart from seasonal events (bless them, great stuff) I'm not doing much apart from swaping cars and grinding and buying cars. The games only been out 2 months !!!
I spent months and months on Forza, creating liveries, stickers, racing online, setting up cars to compete in the ever changing online race formats.

 

[Lawndart]

Its a shame, it seems that the PS3 and most things on it have been playing catch-up ever since they released the console a year early... We get updates about the difficulty of online infrastructure after a game ships?

We learn that PSN has limitations 5 years later that are pretty standard on anything with any online including the iPhone? PSN still doesn't have a party chat system and the chat system they do use for games is of the poorest voice quality possible? Why? Because it shares game bandwidth...?

So in all fairness, it's pretty hard to define anything while still in the process of discovery and trial and error... these things could complicate the dev process as when they set a direction and the limitations are learned much later, you looking at full on features getting dropped...

 

[HBK]

I don't think the problem is that Gran Turismo isn't "Western enough". I think that the Western audience has changed, while the Japanese developers have remained true to their core values. Take a look at what the big games are in the West this past year;

Red Dead Redemption
Call of Duty Black Ops
Modern Warfare 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Halo Reach.

The rest are Wii sports/fitness games. I'm pulling these from various sources, so please bear with me, but all of these are "jump in/jump out" KILL, KILL, KILL! style games. They don't require any real involvement. Gran Turimso is a very deep, and VERY involving game. It requires that you put some time an effort into it. Do we as a society in the United States have that kind of attention span anymore? Apparently we don't, otherwise developers wouldn't be selling things like paid unlocks, which many have asked for even in Gran Turismo.

You, mister, are simply plain wrong.

Even the games you listed require effort and involvement if you want to get the best "fun" out of them.

It's just that they were designed so that you can still get "fun" out of them with little effort and involvement.

 

[RWB1213]

So you mean better AI, more real tracks and events?

Yes, yes and yes.

Dump B-Spec.

Streamline the car catalogue, remove duplicates and give us only "Premium" models.

Add an event/series creator.